Before the Hundred Years War, English was the language of commoners, third in importance after French and Latin, without social or political clout, and unwelcome in artistic society. But the new role of French as the ‘sound of the enemy’ allowed English a proud resurgence, and by the war’s end Chaucer and Lydgate had raised it to true artistic legitimacy. Through poetry and song in English and French, Rumorum follows the wartime blossoming of a language as it finally gained political and artistic currency, from its late-14th-century roots to its acceptance in the most influential song forms of the 15th century.